nuibank

 

Sordel

Thank you for the answer, but I need a little bit more than that I think. Are you saying that the aoe rotation for a group of three elites is SoC-SoC-SoC and repeat until dead? No RoF or Shadowflame at all? Save the other two for non-elite trash?

 

Kandiru

For three adds you might be better just dotting them all up with Corruption / Curse of Elements/Agony, UA and then spamming hellfire, shadowflame and rotating haunts.

The trouble with Seed is it deals only a small amount of damage to the mob you cast it on, but a great deal to all the other mobs nearby. With 3 Adds you are only getting 2 explosions per cast, which isn't amazing.

4+ mobs = spam seed of corruption.

2 mobs = dot them both up

3mobs = ???

 

Darkacheron

i just wanted to make a point about the spirit values. while yes the lowest percentage of the spell power EP spirit should have is 30%, realistically with your spec/glyphs it may be much higher. if you have Glyph of Life Tap, the percentage of the spell power EP would be 50%. with only Demonic Aegis, the percentage of the spell power EP would be 39%. with both, the percentage would be 59%. This will change your Loot Rank/Rawr values a bit if you turn up the value of spirit to its rightful amount for your spec.

 

Naforce

Don't forget BoK which makes it 0.59 * 1.1 = 0.649 = 64.9%.

 

Acro

I have a question about the "guidelines" for dps stats in the first post. While I am not yet happy with my gear, it is at least as good as I would've gotten out of Ulduar hard modes, however the "blue" stats are still different from mine. While I could conceivably swap haste for crit and achieve the crit rating mentioned there, there's about 100 more spirit on the listed gear and the spell power is still about 50 higher than my current +dmg, despite gemming for +dmg with all epic gems. Is this a failure on my part? Am I missing something important when it comes to gearing myself? Or is that post a bit off mark on the "high end" T8 gear, listing the absolutely cream of the cream BiS hardmode Ulduar stats?

Cheers,
Acro

PS. For those interested, here's my armory: The World of Warcraft Armory

 

Ruination

I do believe those stats are for cream of the cream BiS Ulduar Hardmode gear. There definitely is not a requirement for that level of gear in normal ToC, but for mardmode the DPS requirements are fairly steep (at least until it is nerfed to the ground). If your guild has mostly T8 with a handful of ilvl239 (probably not even required), you should have no trouble clearing 25m ToC and will find more upgrades there than Ulduar hardmodes.

 

Maalakai

Just kinda curious if other Warlocks out there have been using Affliction in ToC25 (normal and heroic) and what their success is with it. Would like to maybe swap some tricks of the trade if possible.

After I had quite the showing with Affliction a couple of weeks back, the rest of our Warlocks decided to turn to the dark side of dps and started using the spec as well (except for our dedicated Demonology Warlock of course). We're finding it to be a lot more competitive than Destruction on most of the ToC fights, and the only way for us to keep up with with the new Arcane. We're still pretty weak for Heroic Anubarak (for obvious reasons), but everything other than Twins (which we just go Destruction for) we're able to match and often times beat the Arcane Mages in our guild. Plus it's a lot more fun and challenging. The first two bosses (Northrend Beasts and Jaraxxus) on Heroic mode in particular strongly favor Affliction over Destruction due to being able to DoT up several targets at once, and you also have several opportunities for Drain Soul executing. With more practice, I'm sure we'd be able to perform much better on Twins, which has quite the learning curve in order to maximize Affliction dps with.

You should definitely try it out if you haven't yet. You'd be surprised at the numbers. I'd link some parses but sadly we've made them all private for the time being (still in semi-progression mode at the moment, trying for Tribute to Immortality and all).

 

Kabale

I don't see how speccing Affliction can be beneficial for Heroic Jaraxxus seeing as it doesn't provide much burst when it comes to DPSing portal/volcano. This may or may not be a problem for some guilds, but depending on the RDPS, you may get an extra spawn of Mistress/Infernal if you're not quick on the switch.

I can see it being decent on NB though, however I'd rather run a Destro build with Soul Link for Champions.

 

Ruination

Affliction does have it's merits in HM Jaraxxus even in regards to bursting the portals. The portals should die before your DOTs make any real impact, so Shadow Bolt spamming is probably the way to go here. You are still able to get the ISB debuff up on the portal/volcano significantly faster than a mage can, and if you don't have a crit bird or unholy DK, popping CoE when the portal/volcano first spawns can also help. When multiple mobs are up on both beasts and Jaraxxus, tab dotting is fun and a great way to increase your dps.

For champions, I found that the best spec for a Warlock is the Aff PVP spec. Improved Fear, Curse of Exhaustion, Insta Howl, and Soul Link all increase your ability to kite mobs and stay alive. I generally spend most of the first part of the fight holding hands with the druid healers, so I'm either CCing, sticking my VW on totems, or running from mobs focusing me. I suppose your spec would depend on your role in the raid. Destro with soul link would definitely be the way to go if you were expected to be a primary damage dealer, however.

 

Nartas

While I do agree Mal that affliction is something to look into for 25's HM apart from the aforementioned last two fights, the only problems I see with that are Jar and even on NB the snobolds atleast. For me atleast the only way to keep up with the mages on NB is timing my target switches to snobolds and timing my dooms to go off in daze on Icehowl as well as all my dots before massive crash. Myself and a mage friend of mine Prock are in charge of strats, analyzing parses and assigning individual assignments to dps in the guild, and we usually put people on "BI7CH" duty when we go back to Ulduar for the week if per say people dont say switch to snowbolds whatever the case may be, I just dont want to be hypocritcal myself as I believe as affliction the snowbolds wont really last too long for a full set of dots and therefore would be somewhat of a dps loss.

Perhaps when the remainder of our dps is up to snuff and can shoulder some more of the weight, snobolds, netherportals and volcanoes I'll consider going affliction for Heroic TOC but for the time being it would only be viable in normal mode as target switches for burst dps arent quite as detrimental.

 

Maalakai

I guess it really depends on how your guild handles Snobolds, and adds on Jaraxxus.

For us, when someone gets Snobold on them, they run to melee range and the melee deals with them. As such, it allows Affliction to double or triple dot them and go back to the boss. This results in a pretty decent dps boost during this phase of the fight. I can usually end up on top by the time Gormok is dead. For the worms it's pretty obvious: dot them both up and monitor them carefully for maximum uptime. I've found that putting my Succubus on the one the Melee is killing yields higher dps since that worm will be debuffed for melee fighters. For Icehowl, place your demon portal in the middle so that you minimize your chances of being too far out of range and thus spending too much time running after the knockback. I tried to RNG it a couple of times and hope that he charged someone near me, but as luck would have it he charged someone on the opposite side each and every time. Better to not RNG it and just put your portal in the middle just in case. If you can manage to get him to charge against the wall when he's sub 25%, and if you can get into range quickly, expect some pretty big Drain Soul numbers. Speaking of the knockback, be sure all your dots are refreshed before he does it so that they don't fall off while you're still stunned and/or when running to try and get back into range after the charge. If I play this fight smart and react quickly, I'll win every time. The biggest contributing factor is that you have 3-4 Drain Soul phases (depending on how you handle the worms) over the course of the entire fight.

For Jaraxxus, we ranged obviously prioritize portals, volcanoes, mistresses, and infernals above the boss. As such Jaraxxus himself becomes your off-target most of the fight. Dot him up with Corruption, UA, and CoA, and focus most of your efforts on the adds, etc. For Infernals, I just triple dot all of them and then focus on the boss. Burst isn't really an issue for us on this fight, so we can afford to go Affliction for it. Plus Corruption + Haunt + Shadowbolt (corruption will tick by the time shadowbolt hits) can be decent burst if you look at it the right way. It's hard to beat Mages on this fight due to the thing they spellsteal, but it's possible if you're playing flawlessly.

 

Ilsée

Hi.

Could someone explain me why putting 3 points in Fel Concentration is better than 1 in Fel concentration and 2 in Intensity ? It's probably true that it depends on the fight whether you spend more time shadow bolting than casting haunt and unstable affliction, but overall, the second option grants more (93) than the second (70) for the same amount of points.

Here is my actual build for reference. It's tailored for my 10's guild and takes into account the fact that I am having huge threat issues at the moment and that I use the Felhunter because of raid comp :

Talent Calculator - World of Warcraft

 

Cigaras

Why putting any points in spell pushback reduction for pve? As I recall the only time I had got pushbacks was while tanking Mimirons head. You should better step out of fire and put those points into range increase IMHO. However range increase isn't very useful in Coliseum and if would need to have my felpuppy out at all times I'd put two points in improving him, more spirit means more spell power, something like this (Fel Synergy gives some relief for healers). You would gain 5.28 intellect and 7.04 spirit (assuming BoK is available), according to first post thats ~ 6.7 dps increase not mentioning other mana users in raid.

 

Kandiru

Doesn't the talent only improve the intellect part of the buff from a felpuppy?

[Edit] never mind, I was mis-reading the talent. I think it affects both spirit and int[/Edit]

 

Ilsée

Really ? I am quite new to casters honestly but I had the impression that pushbacks came from many different sources and that those points were not invested in Fel Concentration for no reason. The basic builds suggested here puts 3/3 in it despite the existence of a few options like Improved drain soul and improved Life Tap.

 

Nnayr

The only time you should have push back is while channeling drainsoul and most of the time you are stop channeling after a tick to refresh DoTs so you really shouldn't need it. There are much better talents that yield more dps per point than fel concetration.

 

Veer

The following Pawn Scales are compiled directly using the information from the links above. The numerical ranking given ingame by Pawn matches the ranking given by the LootRank (GuildOx) web site simplifying choices made on the fly.

Naxxramas Starter Gear

( Pawn: v1: "Naxx Starter Gear": Intellect=0.158, CritRating=0.522, HasteRating=0.626, SpellPower=1.295, Spirit=0.661, HitRating=1.097, GemQualityLevel=81 )


Naxxramas Gear hitcapped

( Pawn: v1: "Naxxramas Gear hitcapped": Intellect=0.158, CritRating=0.522, HasteRating=0.626, SpellPower=1.295, Spirit=0.661, GemQualityLevel=81 )


Ulduar Starter Gear

( Pawn: v1: "Ulduar Starter Gear": Intellect=0.229, CritRating=0.755, HasteRating=0.901, SpellPower=1.453, Spirit=0.741, HitRating=1.663, GemQualityLevel=81 )


Ulduar Gear hitcapped

( Pawn: v1: "Ulduar Gear hitcapped": Intellect=0.229, CritRating=0.755, HasteRating=0.901, SpellPower=1.453, Spirit=0.741, GemQualityLevel=81 )


Colliseum Starter Gear

( Pawn: v1: "Colliseum Starter Gear": Intellect=0.253, CritRating=0.836, HasteRating=1.075, SpellPower=1.504, Spirit=0.767, HitRating=1.897, GemQualityLevel=81 )


Colliseum Gear hitcapped

( Pawn: v1: "Colliseum Gear hitcapped": Intellect=0.253, CritRating=0.836, HasteRating=1.075, SpellPower=1.504, Spirit=0.767, GemQualityLevel=81 )

 

Spleener

Patch note updates:

So do these changes make Felhunter better than Succubus?

 

Ruik

Well, I'm no Warlock Master, but was messing around on the PTR with my Warlock, and Self buffed on the Heroic Dummy, Felhunter was pulling about 100 more DPS than the Succubus. I was also messing up my dot timers a bit, so he lost a bit of DPS there.

 

elessar44

I'd welcome that change. Will be nice to have something else summoned other than the Succubus heh.

 

thekid89

How do others feel about the possible new haste change where it will affect the tick rate on corruption? Personally there seem to be some big trade-offs, one being possibly dropping glyph of CoA which is a very strong glyph for affliction. The other is how will haste buffs like eradication/heroism/trinket uses affect the tick rate. Couldn't they in theory make corruption last not enough so haunt cannot refresh it? Just a thought and would like to see some others input.

 

olgamaster

While I don't doubt that the new glyph of corruption, if implemented, will be a dps boost, it DOES raise some concerns for me on eradication. Some quick math I did assuming 20% haste from gear, bloodlust/heroism, and eradication. What will happen, basically, is that corruption will begin to reach durations short enough that they will expire before you have a chance to refresh the duration with haunt:

You'd end up with .641*.8*18= a ~9.2 second corruption (.641 being 1/(.3*.2) before ret/moonkin aura or wrath of air totem.

That would barely get refreshed, if at all, if you were standing at point blank range and cast haunt the microsecond it came off cooldown. Based on personal experience, the refresh on corruption from everlasting affliction has a .5-1 second delay on it, so it's safe to assume that it wouldn't get refreshed anyway. Seeing as those numbers are relatively easy to obtain in a raid environment, especially since we didn't include wrath of air totem or moonkin aura/ret pally aura in any of this, I'd like to see blizzard implement some solution to this potential problem. With increased eradication uptime with the glyph, uptime will be even higher during heroism when corruption is ticking even more often, and thus proccing eradication more often. And considering that heroism is 40 seconds, and the cooldown of haunt is 8 seconds, that means that just one eradication proc during heroism will result in us having to recast corruption up to three times in the duration of the proc (the first corruption cast ends at 9 seconds with 12 seconds left on eradication, the next corruption ends at 18 seconds with 2 seconds left, then the last one is recast while still under the effects of eradication and the haste on it remains even after eradication expires, resulting in one last reapplication). If we happen to get two eradication procs, the potential number of recasts during a heroism goes up to six.

And looking at the new 4pt10 (15% chance on UA tick to give you 12% haste for 10 seconds), and including 3% haste raid buff and WoA totem, unlike before, with eradication up all at the same time, and 20% haste from gear, you get a 0.687*.8*18 = 9.8928 second corruption outside of heroism, which means that we'd need to remain very close up to the boss and use haunt on cooldown to not have to recast corruption. Now if you include heroism, the 4pt10 creates a 7.6176 second corruption, which puts us into the realm of physical impossibility to refresh.

I understand that the design isn't final by any means, but if they are going to introduce haste to corruption, they'll have to change something to solve this problem for affliction locks used to casting corruption once at the beginning of a fight and not worrying about it for the remainder of the encounter.

 

Rubadub

At a glance it just seems like a faster ticking Corruption won't be a DPS increase at all. Isn't the benefit pretty much outweighed by the fact that you will have to cast Haunt earlier and more often?

I don't see this experiment working out unless the Haunt - Corruption synergy is altered somehow.

 

greywizard

they have changed the set bonuses

2 Pieces: (Updated) The critical strike chance of your Shadowbolt, Incinerate, Soulfire, and Corruption spells is increased by 5%.
4 Pieces: (Updated) Each time your Immolate and Unstable Affliction spells deal periodic damage, you have a 15% chance to gain 10% damage done by you and your pet for 10 seconds.

even still afflic will end up with a very low haste soft cap and possibly drop decimation from talents.